


Renegade

by eternalshiva



Series: Mass Effect: Kaidan x Shepard [6]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M, Mass Effect Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 18:58:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternalshiva/pseuds/eternalshiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He followed orders and went above and beyond the call of duty to get shit done and fate was staining his blues with crimson, one rank at a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Renegade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spicyshimmy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyshimmy/gifts), [stonelions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonelions/gifts).



> Spicyshimmy and Stonelions latest collab Greenstick Fractures has a particular sentence in it that has inspired my shenko muse: Memory passed down in the bones.
> 
> I am lucky enough to have received both of their blessings to write to my little heart’s content. Although I am a predominantly fshenko author, the author and the artist are of the mshenko side so, I decided to write a male shepard for this particular drabble (I usually write Mshenko for shimmy because that’s her flavour of pair and her Shepard is all sorts of awkward I can’t resist - however this is my canon male shep).

**_Disclaimer_** \- Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3 is not my property, but is the property of Bioware and the writers who created them. It is not the intention of this fan fiction author to participate in financial gain through this story. No copyright infringement is intended. 

* * *

Blue was never a colour he was particular fond of, Shepard thought as he stared up at the bland, grey ceiling of the detention cell. He tried to convince himself it was just _another_ colour. Not that it worked - his calloused hand rubbed across the buzz of his head and nestled itself under the curve of his head into the pillow. Shadows twisted across the wall, clouds sliding across the afternoon sun of a sky he didn't want to look at because it was _that_ colour.

His thoughts tripped into the past, his teeth picking at the flake of skin on his lower lip as his gaze drifted from the wall to the window again. It was everywhere, this colour - in the reflection of the water from the English Bay on a sunny day, the uniform he wore and in the mirror every morning when he woke and gave himself a one-look over.

Despite his best efforts, he hadn't been able to erase all of it.

His eyes had always been striking - sharp and clear, decisive and cruel more often than not. Very few people had seen the softer side of these particular baby blues and he could count them on one hand, maybe two fingers at most. Where _this_ particular shade of blue came from, Shepard was glad it was shrouded in mystery, his eyes never revealed the secrets of where or whom they belonged to in his family tree - not that he particularly cared or wondered all that much once the Reds had pulled him from one hell hole to another and branded themselves onto his skin.

The memories were embedded with every jagged scar, passed down like a ghost in old bones that were fused with newer ones - that kind of history didn't really matter to him. What _did_ matter was the ache between his shoulder blades.

He could still feel it - the bindings biting into his wrists and ankles, fear coursing through his blood as the leader of the Reds flicked the rusted blade in front of him.

_"No one leaves the Reds, Shepard, no one."_

The memory of the blade made him wince, it had sliced all the way down to the bone. The gang's X symbol a permanent reminder every damned time he straightened his back and moved his shoulders.

 _'Used to feel_ ,' Shepard reminded himself as he scratched his chin absently. The gang leader had been right, no one left the Reds.

The blood that had stained his shirt after he had taught his _old friends_ a lesson seconds after the blade had finished its path was witness to that. He still cherished the rip in his jeans from that fight even if it nearly took his freedom away but Anderson had put a stop to that. What he _remembered_ from that ordeal was the fresh cut across his lip that itched the morning he took on a new oath and draped blue across his healing shoulders.

But the very notion of the Reds wasn't done with Shepard, no, it was far from finished with that old soul.

Maybe that was just how the cards were dealt for him, how his path was laid out - he should have turned and walked away after the Blitz - fate didn't seem to understand what _I should go_ really meant when he saluted his superiors and slipped away from uncomfortable interviews after the Star of Terra was pinned on his chest.

Despite trying to set his path on the straight and narrow, he sought out the opposite and gained the right to wear red once more, after he shed more blood than any other soldier in the Alliance.

The elite, the proud - the ruthless wore it like a badge of courage and strength on their gear, demanding respect and recognition of that honour from their peers. The N7 program sought him out as much he sought _it_. Shepard couldn't tell where murder and duty started and ended, the lines were blurred and crossed. It all depended who you worked for, he guessed.

In the long run, it didn't matter, really what he thought - he was a soldier, a good one. He followed orders and went above and beyond the call of duty to get shit done and fate was staining his blues with crimson, one rank at a time.

When had it all changed? Shepard wondered. His gaze was lazy on the skyline of Vancouver as he sat up on his bed, reaching for a data pad to review his pending requests to meet with the Defense Committee. When had the colour changed meaning for him? He stood up and leaned against the window, eyeing the roofs across the way from him.

It _changed_ on the Normandy SR1.

Destiny was thick with blood lust by his twenty-ninth birthday. Shepard had stepped onto a new frigate, a new mission he had hoped would fade the red into blues again, hoped the line would stop blurring. He wasn't expecting to find a missing piece.

He wasn't sure just _when_ he started to like blue that year, particularly the shade of his own eyes - maybe, now that he had the time to think about it, it had _something_ to do with the people he had surrounded himself with.

Shepard became aware of his fascination with the intricate shades of blues when he observed his lieutenant flaring in various levels of his biotics - light to dark blue, each particular shade for various techniques the commander had taken the time to identify.

For _battle strategy_ , of course.

Blue became more important the day Kaidan mentioned that his Stasis was just the right shade of blue, matching the commander's eyes - before coughing into his hand and rubbing the back of his neck while Ashley rolled her eyes and made some sort of ugly snorting laugh. Shepard had blinked in surprise, unaware of the similarity at the time but quickly confirmed with a passing glance into a shiny panel a few minutes later.

[ ](http://s50.beta.photobucket.com/user/EndlessAbyssEvents/media/Blues1.jpg.html)

It was everywhere, Shepard remembered, on every aspect of the ship - even the aliens were blue or tattooed with the shades. Red still stained the battle field, but now, it drowned under the warmth of Kaidan's biotics. Shepard found himself basking in that colour a little bit more every day. But red would not be outdone, no, she was a cruel and bitter mistress.

The blast on Virmire still burned bright behind his lids, even to this day, every time he closed his eyes.

He could still feel the silk of the blue Alliance flag that draped the empty coffin of Ashley Williams, the pull of his scars on his back as he saluted her memory but all he could think about was the warmth of Kaidan's blood slipping down his neck and in-between his shoulder blades.

He didn't mind them that much anymore - his eyes - they meant something different. It wasn't an unknown history, it wasn't a reminder that he came from nothing. No, the blues stared back at him and all he could think of was the glow of biotics and a warm smile that greeted him when he stepped out of his quarters. They reminded him of the shy curl of lips, layered meanings between awkward conversations.

_"If I'm crossing the line let me know, Commander."_

_"No, you're not... but there are regs."_

The line blurred again.

That night before Illos, it was everywhere - from the light of Shepard's desk that slipped across the mattress, between their bodies when the blues fell piece by piece to the floor as their lips met silently in a hushed sigh, and finally the warmth of Kaidan's biotics on Shepard's skin.

_"I... I should go," Shepard stutters for the first time since he was a boy. Kaidan smiles as he picks up his blues tangled with Shepard's, shaking his head._

_"Yeah, Joker needs you on the bridge."_

He tapped the data pad on his chin in thought, the pending requests forgotten - his mind shifted to another time when fate had her revenge.

He remembered the awe and fear when he had looked up towards the hole in the Normandy's limp and burning corpse. The Collector ship was still out of sight, debris flooded the space where red flames licked and swallowed every moment of peace he'd found on the ship. His eyes took in Alchera hanging silently above him. Her blue frozen surface glinted ominously as the blue flames of the escape pods caught his attention.

The fluidity of biotics and its various shades on Kaidan's skin was the last thing he thought of when his last breath froze between his lips and time trickled to a stop. When he woke from the bleak darkness of a forgotten sleep, chaos was still burning bright around him.

' _No rest for the wicked,'_ he could hear Red whispering in his ear, the ache in his muscles foreign as he fought his way back to the reality that he'd been gone two years and found himself back onto a ship that was no longer familiar to him but familiar at the same time - Joker at the helm, Chakwas in med bay but no marine detail.

His reflection was the hardest to swallow, bright red marks laced his skin where he hadn't healed from his rebirth. The blues of his eyes were too sharp to be his own but he didn't mind because blue meant something _familiar_.

Blue was warmth and joy, love in a strange time that had ended too early and sputtered to a start once more. But not for everyone - some were still frozen on Alchera.

Fate touched him again against his will, her poison dripping, seeping and embedding itself in his skin when Horizon left Shepard broken and Kaidan stumbled ever more into denial.

The line blurred - a construct of bone weave and skin grafts, metal clamps and fabricated plasma in his veins. He doubted his own beating heart, doubted the blood that bled from his wounds. He couldn't bear to see _them_ anymore - the blues of his eyes were just a painful reminder of what he'd lost.

His beliefs had crumbled, fading with every gunshot - the scars wouldn't heal and they glowed a crimson red and finally, he'd forgotten everything - all he could focus on was to be rid of the colour, he couldn't bear it anymore as his reflection glowed eerily in the darkness. The mirror couldn't remind him of the past anymore.

[ ](http://s50.beta.photobucket.com/user/EndlessAbyssEvents/media/Blues3.png.html)

He didn't _want_ to remember but his body ached with the grief of loss, the grief of love and he wondered for a moment if this ache was real, if the memory of a time after death could really exist, if memory could be passed down into bones that weren't really his own anymore.

He didn't know, at the time, if it mattered to dead men walking.

Shepard felt his lip curl into a smile, the memory fading a moment when a boy came running across one of the roofs closest to his cell, a small alliance vessel in his hands. He looked away, up towards the grey sky, clouds were rolling in and he wondered if it would rain again today by dusk. He looked beyond the skyline, the thought of twilight reminded him of darker times on the SR-2.

Shepard had been drifting through space again, mission after mission - friends blurred with foes and Joker worried for a commander who stopped hoping to survive a suicide mission, he couldn't let that light go out inside the man, just yet, and pinged the former navy detail officer to smarten up.

_About Horizon..._

Shepard still didn't know what to say, even six months after the letter had arrived in his personal log. But Kaidan had said just enough for Shepard to see that the bright red burst of the Omega-4 relay's energy wasn't a death sentence anymore, fate's death grip was loosening its hold and he dared to hope again.

"Commander?"

The bright white light of the base's destruction fades into the darkest recess of his mind - swallowed by regret as Lt. Vega stalked into Shepard's detention cell. The hard crisp salute was a sign that something wasn't quite right but the former commander didn't know that fate has pressed her hand against his back as he stepped beyond the threshold of his prison for the last time that day.

With each step, he heard Red whispering but he can't quite focus on the words - his scars itch and something strange was happening with his sight. Strange flashes of visions bathed in death.

The air was thicker than normal and Shepard swallowed hard, trying to keep his features neutral as a Anderson greeted him with a strong hand shake, a pat on the belly. It was something unusually normal - mentor to student and Shepard smiled.

_Anderson at his feet, blood pooling at his side while the earth burns high above him._

_"You did good, son."_

Shepard clears his throat and follows Anderson through the busy hallway - papers scatter to the floor, people rushing by and barely glancing at him. Shepard can feel it deep in his bones as his eyes survey the cloudy horizon of Vancouver.

Everything is electric, there's something hidden up there - he can feel it.

The crisp white lines of the Alliance emblem catches his attention as they approach the Defense Committee, he can sense Kaidan's eyes on his back as he shakes Vega's hands. _Keep it cool, Shepard,_ he reminds himself as their eyes meet. The memories are still heavy between them, he can see it in Kaidan's face - the heavy brow dipping in concern over their lack of contact.

[ ](http://s50.beta.photobucket.com/user/EndlessAbyssEvents/media/Blues2.jpg.html)

"It's fine, Kaidan - or Major, I should say," Shepard salutes with a smile curling his lips just enough for his former lieutenant to notice. Kaidan rubs the back of his neck and laughs - a rumble of comfort the former commander takes as a good sign.

"At ease, soldier," Kaidan shakes his head slightly and reaches out to shake Shepard's hand in greeting - old times crawl to the surface, Shepard swallows hard again as shadows trick his eyes and a battered, bruised and bloody soldier stands before him leaning against another on the cargo bay of the Normandy. All Shepard can focus on despite the chaos around them are those sad brown eyes and the trembling lips that he's sure tastes like steak and lager.

_"Don't leave me behind, again - Shepard..."_

_"I love you, Kaidan."_

Anderson calls for the commander, excusing himself - Shepard steps around the biotic and rubs at his left eye, wondering just what these visions all meant. Maybe he really _was_ losing it, maybe Cerberus had done more damage than good in his reconstruction.

He was broken phoenix risen from the ashes of a Galaxy that didn't want him.

As the committee bickers and ponders _the what ifs_ and _how tos_ Shepard had been warning them about for years, his lips pull back in a snarl - fingers pointing to the static of the screens before them.

"The Reapers are here, we fight or we die," he shouts these words that have no meaning to those who have seen nothing and have suffered no loss. Shepard holds his breath when the light goes dark and floods the room with Red.

The bright eye of the Reaper stares at him, at nothing and everything all at once and unleashes its fury upon the world and its beam slices through the chain of command. Chaos erupts and Shepard falls into darkness, the slippery hands of fate wraps themselves around him and she whispers one last thing to him that won't make sense to him just yet.

_Red, everything is red._


End file.
